


Precious Coral

by mautadite



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3622110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zircon hesitates, squinting at the figure in the distance. “You know that gem?”</p><p>Rose smiles sadly. “I know many gems like her.”</p><p>“That wasn’t an answer,” Zircon observes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious Coral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stoneheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stoneheart/gifts).



> For Mona! Happy birthday my darling Jasper-loving friend. :)
> 
> Lots of conjecture here, as well as some twisting of facts, which I hope you’ll excuse for the sake of fiction.

Rose Quartz and Zircon stand on one of the cliff’s jagged promontories, watching the smoking ruin of the downed ship. The earthen sky has turned into a riot of oranges and pinks and blues behind the smouldering wreckage and the carnage that had come before it. A sky like that tells of endings, a song of grief, an aria for the dead.

But even from this distance, they can see something stirring. A massive plate of gemsteel is hefted from the ground, and beneath it, a bellow like a war horn tears through the air.

Zircon sinks to her knees. Pure exhaustion, Rose thinks, heavier still now that she contemplates a battle that she’d thought already won. Rose had thought so too; it’s been a dauntingly long four days. They’re far from winning this war, but they’d begun to take heart in the victory of this one skirmish. It seems, however, the enemy still has one gem left standing. Rose sees a flashing orange glint that tells her all she needs to know.

For all her exhaustion, Zircon is already reaching for her throat. Rose stops her.

“Go,” she says softly. She nods behind them, to the army regrouping on the rocks. “Find Pearl and the others. I’ll take care of her.”

Zircon hesitates, squinting at the figure in the distance, growing ever closer, ever larger, glowing with a burnt yellow malice like a distant sun.

“You know that gem?”

Rose smiles sadly. “I know many gems like her.”

“That wasn’t an answer,” Zircon observes. Rose smiles again, pats her friend on the arm, and starts down the cliff road.

*

_Coral is massive; their instructor had expected as much, given the size of them both. They are given Quadrant D to learn and master their dance. It’s a difficult process, with Jasper rebelling every step of the way._

_“I don’t need to learn how to fuse!” she insists, granite-stiff in Rose’s arms. “I’m not like those other weaklings!”_

_Rose smiles, tugging her in when she would lurch away._

_“Yes, yes. Let’s humour Hyalite anyway.”_

*

Jasper is upright by the time Rose makes her way down to her. She attacks at once, her fist swooping towards Rose like lightning. The shield is there in plenty time to meet it, block it, throw Jasper back. She tumbles in the dust, rolling and growling.

“Stop this, Jasper,” Rose says, without heat. “It’s over.”

“You _wish_ it was over,” Jasper snarls, back on her feet. “Draw your sword!”

“I won’t,” Rose says calmly. “It would be meaningless. We’ve all suffered much loss, and there are injured to see to on both sides.”

“They can take care of themselves,” Jasper sneers without so much as a glance behind her for the remains of her platoon. 

“You would risk their destruction to fight me?”

Jasper glowers, eyes as vicious as the sun.

“I’d do a lot of things to fight you.”

*

_“Twist, turn, and then I’ll gently—”_

_“Ugh!” Jasper wrenches away. “You’re doing it wrong!”_

_Rose clasps her hands in front of her patiently. “There is no wrong way to do it. We decide on the dance. You just have to let it come. Get in sync with me.”_

_Instead of moving closer, however, Jasper fidgets away. There’s nothing small about her, but for an instant, she looks less the giant, more the gem. Rose approaches like she would one of the gemsprites, cautious and slow, until she’s close enough to look Jasper dead even in the eye. She has a mouth that’s dying to sneer and a face that lives to be cold, but it’s all shimmering with confusion now._

_“You don’t have to be afraid,” she says kindly, and puts her lips on Jasper’s, a sudden impulse that she doesn’t think to curb. Her gem is cold against her cheek, but everything else is warmth and light._

*

With a roar, Jasper advances again, her helmet in place.

“Come on, Rose Quartz!” she yells. “There isn’t another gem alive who could have beat me after I had you and the runts you call an army cornered like that. Show me some more of that brilliant mind!”

Rose hefts her shield, protecting herself from another heavy blow.

“Even if it means your own death?”

“You’re all talk!”

She rushes in blind, head bent to deliver a blow that Rose has seen blast weaker gems to dust when Jasper is in full form. But she’s far from that; the crash has disoriented her, and she’s slower and less vibrant than usual. Her helmet crashes against the shield, and Rose absorbs the blows, staring her down through the pink tint, an awesome feeling of pity and commiseration in her chest.

“I do know one thing,” she says, and leaps skyward in an instant. Jasper’s brute force and momentum keep pushing her forward, and she flies into a crop of rocks. Rose lands several feet away.

“I am stronger than you,” she continues, apologetically, and finally draws her sword.

*

_It only lasts a minute. One moment, they’re tall enough to see the flowers growing far away in the Adamantine Fields, stronger than diamonds, redder and more beautiful than the incarnadine sea. In the next, they’re dissolving, falling apart, one becoming two. Jasper lands sprawled in the dirt, while Rose Quartz manages to cushion her fall with her hair._

_Jasper, of course, is scowling._

_“What was that about?” she demands, jerking a thumb to her mouth as she stands._

_Rose shrugs, rubbing her mouth. Jasper had bitten it roughly in the moment. “I thought it might help. Ruby and Sapphire do it all the time.”_

_Jasper makes a sound of deepest disgust. “Those two?”_

_“I’m sorry if I upset you; I really didn’t mean to.” She grins. “It seemed to work, though. We did it! Coral… she’s wonderful.”_

_If Jasper could be said to flush, Rose might say it now. It’s only fleeting; she turns away before Rose can comment._

_“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I said it before; I don’t need to fuse to be strong. I’m strong enough on my own.”_

_She starts stalking away, leaving Rose in the Quadrant behind her._

*

Rose Quartz leaves her insensate, lying glittering in the dust.

By the time she regains the cliff, some of the surviving Homeworld gems have clustered around Jasper. None of them were eager to engage Rose after that fight, though Rose, with weary sadness, had read promises for future revenge in the gleam of their expressions. This war, she reminds herself for the umpteenth time, is not yet over.

Zircon is waiting for her, which she is too old to be surprised at.

“We’re almost ready to move out,” she reports. “Pearl is waiting for you in the vanguard.”

Rose nods. “Thank you.”

Zircon trots to keep up with her, but is also looking behind.

“Did you… did you kill her?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She expects to be asked why; she would welcome it. It worries her sometimes, how so many amongst her ragtag group of rebels do not realise that death is antithetic to her goals, that she will only usher it in if absolutely necessary. What she wants to protect on this planet, most of all, is life.

But it is another question that Zircon poses.

“What was that you did? When you bent over her, before leaving?”

Rose raises a hand to her mouth, feeling the ghost of cool, polished stone against it. Her lips twitch sadly.

“Nothing. A small gesture. For old times’ sake.”


End file.
